


For My Kingdom Is As Great As Yours

by neverending_shenanigans



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Inspired by Music, Playlist, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:50:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverending_shenanigans/pseuds/neverending_shenanigans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of 500-word-snipets, each inspired by a song. It's more or less three different moods, and will be updated irregularly. The first part is very angsty, and it's always an aged-up Sarah. Oh, and all are post-movie, due to that.<br/>Gift for notagatha, my beautiful brainfriend and muse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Playlist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notagatha](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=notagatha), [ac_MaryAgnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ac_MaryAgnes/gifts).



 

 

 

**For My Kingdom Is As Great As Yours**

 

_A kind of literary playlist, if you'd like to put it that way._

_This first chapter will be updates as the story progresses with the "tracklisting"_

 

**I Despair**

 

  1. (Still A) Weirdo – K.T. Tunstall
  2. Thistle & Weed – Mumford And Sons
  3. Wire To Wire – Razorlight
  4. I Gave You All - Mumford And Sons
  5. Can't Go Back - Rosi Golan
  6. The Shore - Woodkid
  7. My Body Is A Cage (Cover) - Peter Gabriel




	2. I - 1. (Still a) Weirdo

1)      (Still a) Weirdo

 

 _I'd always thought it's automatic_  
to grow into a soul less static  
But here I am upon the same spot  
Attempting to lift off into space

 

 

There was something to be said about having your own place, bought with your own money, Sarah just wasn’t quite sure what it was. She thought she remembered someone clever, probably a writer or philosopher or some other smart ass, saying that your place always reflected a bit of your personality. She’d love to know what he’d think about her place, barest skeleton of what could be, safe for her bed and the book shelf.

Well, and safe for her, sitting here with a delivered pizza, starting to make this place her own, give it a face. And the first box she gone for to was the one her father and Karen had sent from home. The one with childhood memories stashed away, trinkets and trash whose value (or lack thereof) she had realized finally at fifteen. What did that say about her, she wondered.

 

A weary smile accompanied the memory, as she let her fingers trail over the objects in the box. Fond memories, but also another reminder of the teenager she had been. Selfish and haughty. She’d like to think she changed, but then again, who didn’t? Nobody she knew was overly fond of their teenage self. But being self-absorbed was the prerogative of teenagers. The core of herself, though? It was like her father had said over the phone, when she had told him that, being a teacher now or not, she still considered being a writer her real job. ‘ _Still a dreamer, daughter mine’,_ he had said, laughing softly. ‘ _Still thinking that the world will re-arrange itself for you._ ’ If not an applauded actress, she’ll be a famous writer. Sarah snorted. Maybe she shouldn’t bother unpacking. Who knew how long she’ll be able to hold this place.

 

Her eyes ( _-cruel eyes, a part of her mind supplied, like those two words couldn’t go without each other-_ ) seemed to stumble over the stairwells of the Escher-painting, drawn to the little glass-ball tugged in a corner. She didn’t remember that one. Truly, had her memory gone this faulty within the last ten years?

Carefully she took the ball out, holding it up in her palm, looking at it as if the memory of this little think would just come back to her if she looked deeply enough into it. For a moment she imagined that the way the light coming in through the window broke through shifted. For a moment she saw a ballroom, and a little girl dressed in a regal gown, dancing through the night. Within the blink of an eye the image was gone.

Sarah lowered the ball, puzzled and inexplicably worried. Then she shrugged it off, and set the ball back. She didn’t have the desire to stuff her new place with the fanciful things of her fifteen-year old self. These days were gone, and she had no desire to bring them back.

 

She had given up on those dreams of her childhood so long ago that she didn’t even remember it. Not truly.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit that this was always kind of a Sarah-song to me. It's less of a Sarah/Jareth-song, but i like it regardless. It had to be in this, even if it doesn't exactly firt the first "I Desperation" part of the playlist.


	3. I - 2. Thistle & Weeds

2)      Thistle & Weeds

 

_Spare me your judgements and spare me your dreams_   
_Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams_   
_I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind_

 

 

The wind was whispering to him again. She was carrying the voice of a girl that had once made a wish. Sometimes the wind was softly caressing his check, sometimes more of an icy slap to his face. Like an old lover that was trying to warn him, tugging at his black coat, begging him to move from the spot that he had been standing in, every year, every time.

Tonight the sound the wind brought chilled him, though, and the cold air manifested in little clouds every time he exhaled. As if he needed the visual reminder that he always, without fault, came back. Not once being called for, mind you. Whereas he took the pain to remind himself of her, she had forgotten him, had outgrown her memories like she had outgrown her childhood.

He came anyway, to stand unmoving, but not unmoved. Once he had called her eyes cruel, but her voice was worse so. If she was whispering or laughing, screaming or singing; he heard her, waited for her voice to be carried to him; he’s scraping for morsel like a stray dog.

Tonight she was crying. The sound he had been waiting for, all those years. She was crying for the dreams she had lost. The very dreams he had offered once, and that she had refused. Some she had outgrown, other she had secretly harboured despite herself. Tonight she had lost one, and had seen it slip from her fingers forever, like a crystal ball falling to the ground.

The sound of her crying brought no happiness, though. It chilled his traitorous heart, and burning anger welled up in him in response. Wasn’t this what he had come back for every year? To reassure himself that she was suffering the punishment of an ordinary life for refusing him? To see her withering as her dreams died, like they always did for those fickle and fragile mortals in their insistence on having a harsh reality. He felt none of the triumph he had expected to feel. Had not felt it once, in the last decade.

A part of him certainly relished in knowing that she knew the pains that he could have spared her. A part of him might have laughed at her pain. But he didn’t have it in him to do so. Not when he was still a slave to his own dream of a queen to conquer him. Hearing the soft cries of the women he had wished to be his equal was not in the least as satisfying as it deservedly should be.

Seeing her reduced to less than what she could have been, seeing her stained by the weed surrounding her; wilting, instead of blossoming into the flower he would have had her be. Yet he remained, unmoving and not unmoved; he stood vigil to her pain. And only when she had cried herself to sleep would he leave, blessing her with forgotten dreams of old promises and wishes unspoken.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing contains a hell of a lot music by Mumford and Sons. Just to have warned you. This particular song isn't even the one that screamed for Jareth the most. But this one was still too good to leave it out. It contains the plot for an entire story, to be honest. And it's a bit of a dark one, which i always rather like, it'd seem. (And yaye for just-a-bit-creepy-stalkery-jareth. I have to admit that i awalys wondered if he continued to shadow her, like the owl seemingly did.)


	4. I - 3. Wire to Wire

3)      Wire to Wire

 

_She lives by disillusion glow_   
_We go where the wild blood flows_   
_On our bodies we share the same scar_   
_Love me, wherever you are_

 

 

            What he was doing was wrong, and yet…

He was not breaking her precious rules. He used none of his powers on her. He wasn’t watching over her, as he could have. He wasn’t luring her to him with promises. By all standards, he was being fair. When he came to her realm, he simply placed himself in her line of vision. He was merely making himself available. If one would want to put it like that, he let her use him when her cruel world was, as she would have put it once, _‘not being fair’._ Sometimes she might even be right with that assessment. He could acknowledge that by now she had her measure for comparison, and she had paid in pain to have it.

            He let her have the reality that she wanted, that she chose over him. He didn’t linger to see her struggle, to see her reach out, to trust and love someone who was undeserving, and have her trust betrayed, her heart broken, her heart rejected. He should be cackling gleefully that she was experiencing what she had done to him, but every time that the world crushed her he felt himself being crushed with her. Her pain brought back his own.

At the end of her teenage years, when her first dream had been crushed, she established a coping-routine that involved too much beverage, too many dark thoughts and a substantial lack of self-preservation. The first time she had done it, he had merely observed it by accident. He had seen her picking a man from the crowed, trying to drown out her pain with senseless kissing, touching, feeling.

He had been close to deciding that it was time to simply let go. Obviously the world had broken her, and he had no business with this woman, so desperate for love that she was willing to hold unto anyone who could give her the illusion for a couple of hours. But those men that she picked up weren’t for illusions – they were merely there to help her through her disillusion. What made him pause was to see that at one point she always tried again. At one point she would always reach out for love again, her heart barely healed.

He had decided to stay. At one point he had decided that when she would break and fall next time, he would be the one to catch her and put her back together. She wouldn’t have let him catch her, of course. So he spared her the humiliation of knowing. It was enough that he knew. Or maybe it was too much. He didn’t care either way.

He didn’t care that she never panted his name. He didn’t care that the body she caressed was merely an illusion. He didn’t care at all. Because he got to whisper her name. and he was the one to hold her. Even if she never knew.

What he was doing was wrong. He simply couldn’t stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took me a bit to write. But there's just something very desperate, bitter and sweet in this song that I tried to capture here. I failed a bit, i honestly think, but it's still the best version of this that I wrote. I promise I'll try to be better in the next one.


	5. I - 4. I Gave You All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinda!canon. Or how I interpret canon, at least.

4)      I Gave You All

 

_And you rip it from my hands_   
_And you swear it's all gone_   
_And you rip out all I had_   
_Just to say that you've won, you've won_   
_Well, now you've won_

 

Once he had been part of a culture that knew things; part of a kingdom great and borne in ages of magic; part of admirations, fears, whispers and lies, lifes and loves and death. Time had rendered him nothing but a piece in a game played by the gullible and unknowing and his kingdom was nothing more then a tale unbelieved by most.

A game that still followed rules that were as out of place and out of time as magic had become, and a game that left him wondering, with each child he took, if there was anything left to be won from a world that left no place for his kind. What was the prize for him in this scheme? Was there any prize at all?

He had never been bitter about it, though. He felt that he did not necessarily desire that changing, mundane, plain world that was so bitter, stale and so serious. He played the game with distance and a distant mind, and distant amusement, but not disdain.

 

And then she had come, and he had played the game with her, danced the dance with her in steps unknown to her and too familiar to him. But she had had more wit and more imagination and more fines than most. She had brought a keen eye and been able to grasp the edges of the world that was not hers. It had been an amusement to see her staggering first, but it had been more alluring by the minute to see her dance with every more confident step.

And he had in her green eyes seen the fields of old eir, and in her black hair the old bark of trees with roots to go underground, and in her pale skin the foam on the coast where those with the fey-blood used to dance in circles.

Sarah had reminded him of a time when girls like her were stolen to be queens, tempted and tricked to grow and ripen and then to be plucked.

 

He couldn’t blame her. To some extend he had been lost in her and in the game, like he hadn’t been lost for a long time. He had forgotten that this game was not meant to be won by him. He had done all he could, he had bend the rules and he had given her all. As she was supposed to, she had taken – all but him. She had refused him, as was her right, as was expected.

And for the first time he had bemoaned the game, and the rules. For the first time he had bemoaned that in this world in which she lived, there was no space for him. Had the times been different, the magic could have marked her, and people would have known, and with time she would have known, too.

But in the world Sarah lived, all that remained to her was that she had won.

She would never know what she had lost.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This song is, honestly, one of my favourite Mumford&Sons-Songs, and this song contains a whole story, and different stories. You could write a whole Labyrinth-fic with multi-chapters just from this song. What I tried was to capture a bit of the apathy, the regret and wistfulness of it, and I hope I didn't fail entirely. I imagined this more or less directly after Labyrinth ended, by the way.
> 
> Oh, and the culture hinted as, as well as the irish roots, all have to do with the fact that Agatha as well as I kind of just take it for a fact that Jareth is of the fey, the underground sidhe, whatever you'd like to call it.


	6. I - 5. Can't go back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, all the love to Agnes, who is among the kindest, most inspiring people i know. And you should all visit her tumblr and be her friends and send her some love. (Because I'm obviously kind of failing to write cheerful things for her, as of now. Err. Things should get brighter from chapter 9 onwards. I hope.)

5)      Can’t go back

 

 _Some things you can’t go back to, some things need left alone_  
_Don’t mess with the memories of a life passed on_  
_Oh the tumbling reservations at the heart of my mistakes_  
_Oh some things you can’t go back to cause you let them slip away_

 

            She couldn’t say what day it was. It was the first thought she had, when she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her room, blanket pulled up to her chin, arms wrapped around her body in a shallow copy of a hug.

She couldn’t tell if today held anything for her to do. What it didn’t hold was anything important for her to get to. What it didn’t hold was someone that she urgently had to see. Anything urgent, anything that made her feel… anything. Anything to break through this great, bleak wall of grey and dullness in her life.

            No, not in her life. Her life was this grey, bleak thing that she couldn’t grasp. That felt like it had no certain direction, no purpose, no spark. Her life was empty, and dull. And she was too tired to struggle free of it, had no creativity to change it, and saw no sense in trying.

            That’s how it had escaped her. That’s why every day was the same to her in the first place. Her days were just days, passing by. There was no such thing as a future for her, and even just getting out of bed each day was a fight that seemed to have less and less purpose on its own.

            Her purpose, she sometimes thought, was in the past. With the days of teenage hood that had escaped her. With the people of that time that she had led slip away. With the magic of those days, with the spark that she herself had had, and had lost so wholly.

            And the older she grew, the more was she disappointed by what life turned out to be. Life held nothing of that spark that she had expected. It couldn’t life up to her hopes and dreams. And comparing it to memories was always too tempting, and had poisoned even the bright moments that she had had. And she had had them, right?

            She couldn’t say, laying here, with her grey ceiling before her eyes, like the canvas for unwelcome memories. If there had been bright moments, she had not been able to see them, because she had always waited for something brighter to appear in the corners of her eyes, in her peripheral sight. Glowing, sparkling unnaturally. When she had turned her head to look, it had not been there.

            It never had been there. Even when she turned around wholly, she would never have the magic of those days again. And once that realisation had hit her, she had been unable to shake it, and had felt it pulling her down. And the weight of her regrets were added to that realisation, and now there were days were Sarah just waited for the weight to finally rip her apart.

            Because that’s what she was doing. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen to her.

            It made it even harder to remember the days of when she used to be her own heroine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where Chapter 1 was about a Sarah who forgot about the Labyrinth, this chapter is about a Sarah who can't forgett. I can't say which way I prefer, but I think the later would have a strong chance of having to face depression, regrett and very dark thoughts. Losing touch to that wondrous side of the world, where her wildest dreams became true, where she had been so empowered, would have to impact her deeply - especially if she went back to a life where no one would believe even a word of it. 
> 
> On a different note, I totally love Rosi Golan's music. It's all a bit melancholic, but very inspiring.


	7. I - 6.  The Shore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm beyond proud that i finished this in time - and managed to update in time. It's a bit hectic here.

6)      The Shore

 

_My life is full of wine and gold_

_But it's not worth it without you_

_Just like my bed my heart is cold_

_Now you know I've always loved you_

 

He moved in a slow, rhythmical sway through the ballroom, not part of the dancing crowd but still among them. His gaze drifted through the room, on the way ahead of him that only he seemed to see, and it seemed almost absent minded when his eyes touched upon a mask for a moment; upon a dress; upon laughter; upon a smell; upon someone eating something.

He took it when a goblet was offered to him and drank a sip, only to place it elsewhere as he moved forward. He took the women that pushed against him for a slow spin, and pushed them on in someone else’s arm as he moved onward.

He took part, but he wasn’t there. His heart was elsewhere, and his movement through the room was as aimless as that of a sleepwalking man.

A man confined in a dream.

He was a shadow of the king he had been. When she had said he held no power over her, he had made it so, because he chose for it to be true. He had let go of a part of himself in a most undesirable manner. He was a man without purpose now, and he had made it so. What became of the villain after the heroine had won? A slain villain was no villain anymore, but he a villain didn’t become a hero. He had made himself to be for her in all his purposes, and he had fulfilled them. And what became of a fulfilled purpose?

And what became of someone, who had vowed to have loved someone from the beginning of time to the end of it, after he had lost her? It was only forever, it was only always, it was only everything. There was no space left for a future, there was no room for change. He unmoving, trapped. Trapped, in this foam, in this illusion.

All he could do was what he had done before. All he could do was keep to his word, and toe the borders of their worlds, hoping for her to be washed up against the shore. Night and night again. Maybe at least to her dreams she would return, if not to him. Maybe her sleeping mind would allow itself to be held by him. Maybe he could be the partner in her dance again, if not her villain, her hero or her lover.

It would not be enough, surely. Nothing more than a drop for a man dying of thirst. But it was all that was left to him, and he had known it would be this way from the first moment he had made his vows. This was his side of the bargain. He had told her so, but the precious child had not understood.

He could not live within her. He couldn’t go on forever just part of her dreams. But it was what she had reduced him to. Nothing but a dream.

Tonight he waited in vain. Again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is slightly complicated, mostly because I have a weird way of thinking sometimes. When I thought of "The Shore" I thought of the shore between waking and dreaming, a state in which your mind sometimes plays tricks on you. The second prompt to spark this one was from the line from the scene in the Escher-Room: "I can't live within you". I always took that as a hint that he can't remain a fantasy.  
> Here is how it could go down if he tried anyway.  
> In this case, Jareth is not actually trapped, but as the Goblin King, he holds those dreams that Sarah once refused on his fingertips. I decided to take the 'dream' bit literally, so what he does is try to haunt her dreams. But, alas, he can only reach for the dreams that he knows of her, before she bested him. And this is the one that he hopes she he she might dream of, everyonce in a while.


	8. I - 7. My Body Is A Cage

7)      My Body Is A Cage

 

 _I'm living in an age_  
_That calls darkness light_  
 _Though my language is dead_  
 _Still the shapes fill my head_

 

Wishes, and Dreams, and the old ways. These were the paths to the labyrinth.

            The Labyrinth was Magic. It was shifting, and changing, vibrating with power, everlasting and fleeting at the same time. The Labyrinth was part of him, and he was part of it. The Underground was different than her world, bowing to none but their own rules. And these rules were strict, and not even the Goblin King could bent them, bow them, break them.

 

Rules of wishes. Power of words. Making of promises.

            He bowed to these rules, he danced between them, toeing the line, sometimes finding slim loopholes. They were as much part of him as his nature, as much part of him as his magic. In his early years he had tested his boundaries, the borders of his world. Then he had accepted them. And then he had learned to grudge them. These rules, this kingdom, was his cage.

 

A cage of magic. A cage of rules. A cage of years.

            The Aboveground world shifted and changed, and he was condemned to being static. The same scheme, the same plays, the same tricks. The labyrinth shifted, but it did so slowly. It only did so with motivation. With runners. Aboveground Children, Aboveground Ideas, Aboveground Motivation. They had their own Magic their, and he longed for it. Reached for it, lured them in for a brief visit. For he could not come to them. He was bound to the labyrinth, as it was bound to him.

 

Prisoner with a crown, jester with a throne, King in a cage.

            Though Magic he had, sometimes he felt as if he had no power at all. The centuries bored him sometimes. Forever was a garishly long thing. And amusement was so hard to come by. Only these glimpses of aboveground’s entertaining ways. All so fickle in their life, so blind, so clumsy. Humanity was a mirror, reflecting his polar opposite, in so many ways. For a blink of his eyes, they distracted him, when they entered his world. But the memory often lasted longer than their life.

 

Her Memory would outlast her last breath as well.

            Not for the first time did he feel bitter about it, but the loss of her was maybe the greatest so far. In her young years, she was the one who had challenged the ways of his world the most. She had bowed to the rules, but she had bent them. There had been grace in her sure steps on the parquet of this game. She had toed the lines with much cunning, and had made leaps of faith in her own abilities. It had been a bittersweet distraction.

 

For a fleeting moment, he had had her in his world. But he could not be part of hers. He was bound to his ways, to his words, to his world. In that, she had been wrong. Her Power was not as great as his, nor was her Kingdom as wide. Both were greater.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being one day late, and - Whew, we're almost through the dark, bitter "I Despair" part. No, honestly, I promise, just one more song.
> 
> Btw, the Peter Gabriel Version of this song gives me chills. And there's nothing I'm going to add to that. Read the lyrics, there much that could work for Jareth.


End file.
